No doubt we've all heard the apocryphal story of the Japanese component supplier which was allowed a faulty component rate of 3 per 10,000 per order. So they enclosed a note with the first delivery, stating that they had packaged the three faulty parts separately so that they could be easily identified. Dates back to the eighties I think - possibly the seventies.
It was Apple ordering hard discs (5Mb, yes Mb) from Sony IIRC.
